


Terms & Conditions

by TrulyCertain



Series: Shield Raised [5]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: AUs, M/M, modern crack-ish AU, really ridiculous AUs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 22:21:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12241752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrulyCertain/pseuds/TrulyCertain
Summary: In which Dorian moves into a new area and needs some help to restore his father's shitheap of an old house. This needs a team. Or one rather awkward Trevelyan handyman who's large enough to be a team in his own right.





	1. Terms & Conditions

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a very silly AU I ended up stumbling into with some Tumblr friends, and was written in March - it just took me a while to post it. If you'd like to find out more about the insanity that is the Knight Shop, take a look at the collection, which has an FAQ and relevant links.

Dorian steps into the unassuming little shop, peering around, before he shoves his hands into his pockets and wanders towards the counter. 

Yvaine’s words are still ringing in his head.  _Their rates are reasonable - certainly better than most of the handymen round here. Stop looking at me like that and_ go,  _if I have to hear any more complaining about your boiler I swear I’ll -_

_Not my boiler. My father’s._

There’s a little dust; not much, just enough for a certain shabby atmosphere. Someone’s put a bell on the counter, so after a moment of hesitation, he presses it. A bright  _ding_ cuts through the silence.

A surprised sort of scuffling noise, and then someone’s coming through from the back room, carrying a cardboard box. They pause, blinking at him.

Dorian tries not to blink back. _Knight?_ This man looks more like an escapee from a biker bar: tall, broad and a little unshaven, with long, hastily tied-back hair and various tattoos visible past the sleeves of a T-shirt that might have been black once, but is now a faint grey.

“Oh.” The man tilts his head. “You here for a knight?”

Dorian’s hardly one to be fazed by a few tattoos, even if he expected the staff to be somewhat… smaller. More history enthusiast and less brick-wall berserker, so on. “Unless I’ve misread the sign, yes. I had a recommendation from a friend.” He lets his gaze stray to the small, neon-card star that’s been haphazardly attached to a wall. It’s a rather terrifying pink.  _Home repairs - ask at counter, rates may vary._ “I’m ‘asking at counter,’ by the way.”

The man follows his gaze. The hint of a smile, and well, that’s interesting. “I noticed.” Putting the box on a chair, Tall, Dark And Blue-Eyed moves to the counter and leans on it, palms flat against the surface, his face all business again. “Why do you want to hire a knight?”

A lesser man than Dorian would be distracted by the span of those shoulders and those intricately inked, rather fine arms. He could possibly lose his train of thought entirely. Luckily, Dorian is not a lesser man, and he manages not to pause as he responds, “Home repairs. Flatpack assembly. Possibly plumbing work, depending on how bad things get.”

The “knight” frowns. “’How bad things get’?” He’s surprisingly soft-spoken for a man who looks the way he does, with precise, educated vowels.

“I’ve only been in the house for four days. I don’t know it well. It’s been abandoned for some time, and it hasn’t held up.” Easier than saying  _it was my father’s spare town house and it’s been ignored for over a decade._ He thinks that might be somewhat daunting.

“I can take a look for you. We can start from there.”

Dorian pauses, and narrows his eyes. “Will it cost me extra?”

“Not for advice. That’ll only change if I have to get the tools out, and I’ll tell you.”

Dorian gives a brisk nod. “Then please do. Someone in the place should know what they’re doing.”

That smile again, too quickly gone. “I’m not much of a plumber. You might have to ask for one of the others. And I’m sure you’re not that bad.”

Dorian snorts. “Oh, I’m excellent. Just not at anything that might involve a hammer. I tried to put up a shelf once. Nearly knocked the wall through instead.” He’s exaggerating - the shelf was fine, it was half an hour’s work and then he had somewhere to put his editions of  _Corder’s Theorem,_ though that wasn’t in a half-crumbled mansion  _-_  but he wants to see if he can…

Ah. Yes. He hears a low, pleasant sound, and realises he’s managed to provoke a laugh. The knight’s eyes are entirely too bright, and too kind, when he smiles. It almost ruins the intimidating demeanour. “The wall’s still standing?” the knight asks.

“Barely.”

Another quiet, huffed laugh. “How’s Thursday for you?”

“Triple-booked, I’m afraid. Monday?”

“Monday works. Morning or afternoon?”

Dorian considers it, and then settles on a compromise - one which might, if he’s lucky, mean the poor “knight” won’t have to brave rush-hour traffic to get to the house, and he won’t have to crawl out of bed at some Makerforsaken hour in the morning to answer the door. “Afternoon seems more civilised. Three?”

“Three.” A nod. Then the man reaches underneath the counter. He pulls out a slightly crumpled photocopy and lays it on the surface between them. “I’d put down what you think you’ll need.“

…Ah. Dorian can’t help smiling when he reads it, even as he raises an eyebrow. “’ _The Knight’s Contract’?_ I’m impressed at your commitment _.”_

The knight ducks his head, but he can’t make himself smaller; there’s nowhere for all that bulk to go. “Blame the admin. She came up with the wording, and she prefers written contracts.”

Dorian tries not to think of legal battles and sub-clauses. “Understandable.” He pulls his favourite fountain pen from his pocket before sliding the document across the counter and perusing it, and then he begins to detail the potential job, and the scale of it. Such as the fact that he may need to be rescued from his father’s holiday deathtrap. He reaches a certain point and then has to reread. “’Sworn knight’? Is there some sort of secret handshake?”

“There’s pat-a-cake. I can’t tell you any more.”

The answer’s delivered so flatly that Dorian looks up, into very blue eyes and the hint of a smile. The bastard’s laughing at him. “Well,” he says smoothly, “then it wouldn’t be a secret, would it?” He continues ticking boxes and writing. Perhaps writing too much; he’s running out of space.

He feels the knight move, and then lean over slightly, close enough that it’s obvious how unfeasibly  _warm_ he is. “Not sure that’s a normal contract.”

And here he thought his additions might be appreciated. He raises a brow. “And all this” - he looks pointedly round the shop, lingering on the full suit of armour on display in the corner - is your idea of  _normal._ ”

With that soft laughter again, the man responds, “You have a point.” A pause. “What are you…?” There’s another laugh in his voice.

Dorian looks up innocently from the contract, where he’s ticked the  _protection detail needed_  box. “You look like you’d be good at it.”

“You don’t have anyone you need to be protected  _from_.” The knight steps back.

“I’m sure I’d find someone. Or you could just stand around looking imposing. Yes, precisely like that.”

The knight’s just watching him steadily, with crossed arms and an impressively unreadable face, but even in these few minutes, Dorian’s known him long enough to realise that under… everything else, he’s probably restraining a laugh.

“Besides, you’re not accounting for falling balustrades, or being blinded by my family’s taste in wallpaper.”

The knight extracts a ratty, chewed-looking biro from somewhere and scribbles _NO_ next to the little box _,_ before adding an emphatictriple underline. But he’s smiling, and not too good at hiding it.

“What  _is_ your name?” Dorian asks, when they reach that part of the contract.

All he gets in reply is, “Gal.”

“I take it that’s not legally binding.”

“She’ll understand.”

Dorian sighs. “Be that way.” He scribbles  _will only let me call him “Gal”_ on the contract. “Galahad, or something else?”

“Galahad.”

He offers his free hand, without looking up. “Dorian Pavus. I don’t have any interesting nicknames. Unless you count ‘the handsome one,’ and that only seems to be in the corner newsagent’s.”

It gets him another laugh, and then a warm, strong hand is wrapping round his and shaking. “They’ve got good taste.”

He almost glances upwards at that, because if he didn’t know better, he’d think he was being flirted with. He’s far too out of practice at this sort of thing. Simple politeness, that’s all it is. Instead he just smiles and lets go, returning his attention fully to the contract. “That’s exactly what I said.” He pockets his pen and passes the contract back to this… Gal, who looks it over with barely concealed amusement. “Monday, then?”

Gal nods. He’s probably reached the part about  _estimated duration_ (“oh, Maker knows” was all Dorian managed), because his eyebrows are rising and he looks to Dorian. “Seven hours, at worst, if the plumbing’s that bad,” he says. “Probably more like two and a half, three.”

Dorian can’t quite stop himself. “And it’ll be you?”

“It’ll be me.”

“Thank you. Monday, three o’ clock, at the house. I look forward to being saved from the perils of cheap furniture.” With a jaunty wave, he turns and heads out of the shop so he won’t look too long at that surprisingly infectious half-smile, or the tattoos.

He can feel the knight watching him go.


	2. Revenge

“Monday, then?” 

The voice that floats through from the front of the shop could cut glass. It’s the sort of voice that has a mansion and a possible monocle attached. Alistair pauses while sweeping behind the fridge - he was pretty sure it was flush to the wall, how do the dust bunnies even  _get_ there? - and raises an eyebrow, even though there’s no-one there to see it.

“Monday’s good.” Gal’s voice is quiet, but there’s a weird note in there, something Alistair hasn’t heard before. If he didn’t know better, he’d think - 

“Monday, three o’ clock, at the house. I’ll look forward to it.” Usually customers sound less like they’re trying not to laugh.

He shuffles quietly through just in time to catch the swish of an expensive-looking coat, then the bell above the door rings as it closes. He’s left with Gal, who’s leaning against the counter and watching their latest customer saunter away down the street. And… okay, that’s a face he didn’t think he’d ever see on  _Gal_.

“Wow,” Alistair says. “You know, people told me I looked like I’d been hit round the head with a blunt object when I first saw Alexia, but  _wow.”_ He pauses and tilts his head _._  “I say people. I mean Cassandra.”

Gal gives him the  _Look._ The one that makes you figure maybe you should’ve worn your brown trousers to work today. The one that makes Alistair remember how the first few months, when he couldn’t remember Gal’s name, he’d just go for _“uh… tall, dark, scary, tattoos?_ ” and everyone would nod knowingly. Gal says, “Don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Sure. I didn’t know ‘seventeenth-century villain’ was your type, but whatever works for you…”  He hadn’t actually known Gal’s type was, well, men, either, but the more you learn…

Gal crosses his arms. Alistair starts rethinking his life choices, possibly because very soon, he may never have the opportunity to make any more, ever.

Alistair gestures wildly and has to grab the broom before it drops. “I’m just saying, with a moustache like that, people make certain assumptions…” At Gal’s raised eyebrow, Alistair throws his palms in the air and has to hastily reach out to catch the broom again. “And they’re wrong! Completely wrong.” He dares to sidle sightly closer. They’re probably at the stage in their relationship where he isn’t going to get punched. They’re maybe kind of friends, if accidentally getting Gal drunk enough to do karaoke that time counts. “Sooo… what did he hire you for?”

Gal’s eyes move to the ledger/journal/doodle-pad on the counter, and Alistair’s just relieved he’s no longer getting a hole bored in his head. (All right, it’s not  _officially_ adoodle-pad, but Alistair occasionally gets bored and ends up doing these tiny sketches of a knight on horseback when he gets to the end of a page, and if the knight’s blonde and female and has a sword that’s far too big to be practical, it’s a complete coincidence. It’s not like anyone can prove anything. Stop looking at him like that.) 

Gal says, “Moving work. Might be putting up some shelves.”

“Somehow I’m guessing it’s just you on this one.” And look, two can play at the eyebrow-raising thing.

“I’ll call if I need any help. Cassandra’s in on Monday.” 

“How’d he hear of us? Or did he just walk past, look at you and think, ‘He’s  _definitely_  good with heavy things’?” Alistair looks pensively towards the door. “I don’t know, he probably works out. He could be pretty heavy…”

“Cullen’s friend recommended us.” Gal’s voice is flat. And dangerous.

“Right, that makes sense. Huh. Your ears have gone pink.”

“Alistair _.”_

“No, no, this is revenge. After how you were when I was stupid over Alexia…”

Gal frowns. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You not-said things very  _loudly_.”

“…Oh.”

“You should wear something blue. Josie always says it’s a good colour on you.”

“ _Alistair._ ”

“All right, all right, please don’t hit me.”

Gal doesn’t hit him, just turns back to the ledger and jots something down. It might be an address. It probably belongs to a house where the wardrobe’s as big as his flat. Or maybe that’s just Alexia’s.

Alistair’s heading back through to the kitchen when he hears, “…Thank you.”

He turns. “Sorry, did you say something?” He puts his hand to his ear. “It was a little quiet…”

“Kitchen needs sweeping,” Gal says, and looks back to the ledger. He might be smiling. Or it might just be a twitch. Who knows.


End file.
